Did Cantor really lose because of immigration?

posted at 11:31 am on June 11, 2014 by Allahpundit

Better question: Does it matter? His defeat’s being received by the powers that be as a referendum on amnesty; no one thinks the prospects for immigration reform are the same as they were 24 hours ago, despite the White House’s lame effort to spin the Graham/Cantor outcomes as a, er, win for reformers. As such, there’s a “Keynesian beauty contest” element to all this. Whatever the real reason is for why Cantor lost, the reason accepted by the crowd on the Hill is immigration. That’s what matters. Wonderful news for border hawks.

But let’s stick with the question, just for funsies. Did amnesty do him in? Some smart observers think there’s more to it than that. Erick Erickson:

Cantor’s constituent services moved more toward focusing on running the Republican House majority than his congressional district. K Street, the den of Washington lobbyists, became his chief constituency. In Virginia a couple of months ago, several residents of Cantor’s district groused that they were going to support Brat because they did not think Cantor was doing his job as a Virginia congressman. Others no longer trusted him.

Cantor and his staff both lost the trust of conservatives and constituents. They broke promises, made bad deals, and left many feeling very, very betrayed. Much of it was because of Cantor’s hubris and the arrogance of his top staffers. He could not be touched and he could not be defeated. He knew it and they knew it. He kept his attention off his district, constituents, and conservatives while he and his staff plotted to get the Speaker’s chair.

“Was immigration an issue? Yes. Was it the deciding factor to the tune of 11%? Not no, hell no. It’s a fairy tale,” Virginia Democratic strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders said. “People talk. And they talk about Eric Cantor. ‘Where is he?’ His constituent services suck. He was never in the district. And when he was in the district and he went out, he had a [security] entourage with him. He was out gallivanting all over the country being a big deal and this is a lesson.”

Dave Brat hammered Cantor on the trail for being an insider too. Casual observers like me only noticed his amnesty rhetoric, but the Wall Street/Main Street divide was a key part of his pitch. He ran a full-spectrum populist campaign, packed with attacks on Cantor for being too chummy with lobbyists and assorted other cronies. In fact, as Ed noted earlier, a PPP poll of voters in Cantor’s district yesterday found overwhelmingly support for comprehensive immigration reform — even among Republicans:

About 72 percent of registered voters in Cantor’s district polled on Tuesday said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” support immigration reform that would secure the borders, block employers from hiring those here illegally, and allow undocumented residents without criminal backgrounds to gain legal status – three key tenets of an overhaul, according to a poll by the left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling and commissioned by the liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change.

Looking just at Republicans in Cantor’s district, the poll found that 70 percent of GOP registered voters would support such a plan, while 27 percent would oppose.

Meanwhile, Cantor was deeply unpopular in his district, the PPP poll found. About 63 percent of those surveyed in his district said they did not approve of the job Cantor has been doing, with 30 percent of registered voters approving. Among Republicans, 43 percent approved of Cantor’s job performance, while 49 percent disapproved, the survey found.

Polling immigration reform is always, shall we say, problematic, but I think you can square PPP’s data with Brat’s win. The majority of local Republicans might mildly support a grand bargain on amnesty, but on hot-button issues like this, it’s the opponents who have the turnout muscle. Same with guns, of course. The public supports expanded background checks overwhelmingly but few House Republicans would dare back it for fear of being swamped by gun-rights enthusiasts at the polls in their district. My theory, then, cliche though it may be, is that Cantor got swept away by a perfect storm. He was too disengaged with his district and had been for years; he employed a poor campaign strategy that ended up inadvertently elevating Brat; he faced soul-deep disgust among voters, especially tea partiers, with the Washington status quo, which the House majority leader inevitably embodies to some extent; and, yes, his chatter about DREAMers triggered conservative outrage at House Republicans’ endless flirtation with amnesty and the deceit they often employ to shield themselves from criticism. Cantor actually tried to sell himself in the primary as some sort of immovable object blocking the path to amnesty, a lie that pro-amnesty fanatic Luis Gutierrez was happy to support in the name of protecting Cantor. I’d like to think righties turned out in droves for Brat for that reason too, to send a message to Boehner, Rubio, and the rest that it’s time to stop farking lying about their intentions on immigration already.

And yet, and yet, if that was all that Cantor was up against, I think it would have been a close race. Brat still might have won but not by double digits. What turned this into a rout, I suspect, was the news over the past few weeks — loudly trumpeted by Drudge, Breitbart, and conservative talk radio — about young illegals from Central America crossing en masse over the Texas border. That was the rocket fuel, I’ll bet, that convinced even casual GOP amnesty skeptics in the district that Cantor’s and Obama’s efforts to legalize DREAMers were acting as a magnet at the border. If I were a voter in the district, I would have taken that news as smoking-gun proof that Brat was right and that sending Cantor back to the House would only make that magnet stronger and bigger. Via Breitbart, here’s Chuck Todd making the same point. That’s what turned this from a momentous upset into the surprise landslide of the century.

I don’t give a rat’s a** why he lost. The GOP does not represent Conservative voters regardless of the lies they tell around election time. In the modern media era, it is getting a lot more difficult to make those lies stick.

So Cantor is gone because of amnesty/neglect of district/lobbyist cronyism … whatever.

The GOP will now seek to make Brat conform while Conservatives either stay away from the polls or vote against GOP regulars. This negative voting behavior will do nothing but gain momentum because he GOP can do nothing to conceal that as it stands now the GOP is a loser on the national stage.

About 72 percent of registered voters in Cantor’s district polled on Tuesday said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” support immigration reform that would secure the borders, block employers from hiring those here illegally, and allow undocumented residents without criminal backgrounds to gain legal status – three key tenets of an overhaul, according to a poll by the left-leaning firm Public Policy Polling and commissioned by the liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change.

Nobody in Washington is even talking about this. What the sellouts in Washington want is no border security and a pass for illegals. To state that the poll question is what Washington is going to do is a farce.

Enough with these auto-play videos. AGGGGHHHHH.
themuppet on June 11, 2014 at 11:38 AM

Thank you – I agree – good lord –

jake-the-goose on June 11, 2014 at 11:39 AM

Third that.

formwiz on June 11, 2014 at 11:43 AM

To disable autoplay videos for Chrome IE Safari

or:

For Firefox:
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2. Search for plugins.click_to_play and toggle that to trur
3. Search for plugin.state.flash and set that to 1
This way you will see a message asking if you want to activate videos.

kcewa on June 11, 2014 at 11:48 AM

Since AP gave the link to the video in the text already, the embeded video was superfluous.

re: Firefox – that’s too much tinkering to turn flash on/off, just use this addon to turn any number of items on/off just by clicking on a corresponding icon in the toolbar –http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quickjava
(Allows quick enable and disable of Java, Javascript, Cookies, Image Animations, Flash, Silverlight, Images, Stylesheets and Proxy from the Toolbar.)

And, yes, Cantor’s loss was due to his pro-amnesty stance coupled with the flood of illegals.

Did amnesty do him in? Some smart observers think there’s more to it than that. Erick Erickson

The “Young Guns” Are Firing Blanks. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Cantor were considered the so-called “young guns” in the House, preparing to take over leadership from Boehner and company whenever he stepped down. Ryan and Cantor have been vocal about their desire for immigration reform legislation this year. Cantor is now gone. And Ryan’s position as a leader is in serious jeopardy. link

How quickly these “young guns” assimilated into status quo beltway Republicans. Can’t wait to hear Paul Ryan’s take on all of this.

(how’s that Chamber of Commerce money working out for you young guns?)

“I believe the results of this poll about as much as I believe Obama.”

It was deceptive in that what the respondents supported as “immigration reform” is 180 degress different from what the GOPe has been pushing as immigration reform. They redefined immigration reform for the poll questions and now trumpet the results as broad support for the radically different “immigration reform” being floated in Congress. As noted above, it is a classic push poll.

1. Brat’s win is being hailed by the news as a ‘TEA Party Victory’; however, this can’t be much farther from the truth. The TEA Party did not support Brat – they wrote him off as a complete loss, as No House Majority Leader has ever lost a primary, EVER in this nation’s history.

2. All Cantor had to offer Virginia was: 1) I have a lot of money, 2) I have experience, and 3) I am working hard – not to make life better for the people of Virginia/Americans – for Illegals. Virginia did not LOSE a Representative who works for them last night – they GAINED one. The only people who lost a representative last night was the Illegals in this country!

This should be a wake-up-call boot-in-the-arse for the Establishment GOP / Boehner / etc who are pushing so hard for Amnesty while Obama has not only opened up the borders to illegals but is also reportedly PROMOTING illegal immigration into the US down in Central American countries: ‘If your kids make it to the US we won’t deport them, and both they and their parents will be given Amnesty’. THAT is why there are 47,000 illegal children here, a massive increase from last year, and why it is predicted by the end of this year we will see a 2,000% increase in the number of illegal kids crossing the border from 2011!

Politicians, like Cantor- in the midst of targeting/spying/punishing Americans. a poor economy, a high unemployment/no jobs, & a rogue government who has publicly foresaken the Constitution and Rule of Law, have completely forgotten who they work for, who they represent, what they are supposed to be doing in Washington, and that they are supposed to adhere oto their oaths of office and uphold/defend the Constitution & Rule of Law. Cantor wasn’t doing it…and the state of Virginia just delivered an HISTORIC kick to the political crotch of the GOP in an attempt to not only get their attention but also to TAKE OUR GOVERNMENT BACK / REIGN IN this out-of-control political situation!

I was thinking late last night and asking myself, ‘Why does this feel soooooo familiar?’ It hit me. I felt it a few weeks ago after the ‘Earthquake’ in the MEP and local elections in the UK and across Europe. Populist parties won and there were two main issues:

1. Massive immigration.

2. Centralisation (EU).

People are tired of elitist politicians ignoring (Yes, we know what you claim to want, but we know what is best!) and slandering them (Nativist! Racist! Xenophobe!) while refusing to address issues that are really having a negative impact on the people’s lives.

With the labour force participation in the US at a 37 year low, it is unsurprising that the middle and working classes want Washington to focus on them, jobs, and the economy. Perhaps, if the economy was booming, people would support the mass influx of uneducated immigrants from poorer countries. In the UK, the immigrants come from Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria. In the US, they are coming from Mexico, Central and South America. That those coming into the US are Hispanic is merely a product of geography. I have no doubt that Americans would feel the same way as Brits do, who are looking at up to 21 million immigrants coming from Eastern Europe over the next few years…and the entire population is only 61 million now. The burden that is placed on schools, hospitals, housing, transportation, social services, etc, has been enormous.

re: Firefox – that’s too much tinkering to turn flash on/off, just use this addon to turn any number of items on/off just by clicking on a corresponding icon in the toolbar –http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/quickjava
(Allows quick enable and disable of Java, Javascript, Cookies, Image Animations, Flash, Silverlight, Images, Stylesheets and Proxy from the Toolbar.)

I was in the wrong state, but I had the right topic. Cantor’s defeat has less to do with immigration reform than it does with an uneven movement that should frighten conservative and liberal political elites to their shallow cores.

Americans see a grim future for themselves, their children and their country. They believe their political leaders are selfish, greedy, and short-sighted—unable and/or unwilling to shield most people from wrenching economic and social change. For many, the Republican Party is becoming too extreme, while the Democratic Party—specifically, President Obama—raised and dashed their hopes for true reform.

“America is for the greedy, for those who’ve made their buck or grabbed their power. It’s not for us,” said Helen Conover of Oxford, Pa. She was eating with two other Chester County employees, Jennifer Guy and Kim Kercher, at the Penn’s Table diner. Conover was the table’s optimist.

“This country’s doomed,” Guy said. Kercher nodded her head and told me that she’s close to losing her house to a mortgage company and can’t get help from Washington. For years, their county salaries haven’t kept pace with the cost of living. “The rich get richer. The poor get benefits. The middle class pays for it all,” Kercher said.

Guy said she’s an independent voter. Conover and Kercher are registered Republicans. All three voted for Obama in 2008, hoping that he could start changing the culture of Washington. Now, they consider the president ineffective, if only partly to blame for his failure.

“He hit a brick wall,” Conover said. “The Republican Party is not going to let him change anything.”

I replied, “But it’s your party.”

“No,” Conover bristled, “it’s not my party. I don’t have a party.” She paused, took a small bite of her sandwich and added, “An American Party is what I have.”

Who do you think gutted the STOCK Act, which would have made insider trading illegal for people in Congress? Just like it is for the rest of us.

Also, don’t forget that Cantor went to a Republican ‘big-wig’ and lobbyist meeting at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida. It was hosted by the Republican Main Street Partnership PAC, which has received Soros and AFL-CIO money. At the meeting, which Boehner and McCarthy were smart enough not to attend, Cantor bashed the grassroots and TEA Party.

A violent revolution is unconscionable. But what may be in the air is a peaceful populist revolt—a bottom-up, tech-fueled assault on 20th-century political institutions. In a memo to his fellow Democrats, former Clinton White House political director Doug Sosnik writes persuasively about “an increasing populist push” across the political spectrum.

At the core of Americans’ anger and alienation is the belief that the American Dream is no longer attainable. Previous generations held fast to the promise that anyone who worked hard and played by the rules could get ahead, regardless of their circumstances. But increasingly, Americans have concluded that the rules aren’t fair and that the system has been rigged to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a privileged few at the expense of the many. And now the government is simply not working for anyone.

Americans’ long-brewing discontent shows clear signs of reaching a boiling point. And when it happens, the country will judge its politicians through a new filter—one that asks, “Which side of the barricade are you on? Is it the side of the out-of-touch political class that clings to the status quo by protecting those at the top and their own political agendas, or is it the side that is fighting for the kind of change that will make the government work for the people—all the people?”

A desire to go after big banks and other large financial institutions.

Elimination of corporate welfare.

Reducing special deals for the rich.

Pushing back on the violation of the public’s privacy by the government and big business.

Reducing the size of government.

In Washington, Cantor’s defeat is being chalked up to the tea party’s intolerance toward immigration reform. While he paid a price for flirting with a White House compromise, Cantor’s greater sin was inauthenticity—brazenly flip-flopping on the issue. Typical politician. Worse, voters sensed that Cantor was more interested in becoming House speaker than in representing their interests. He spent more money at steakhouses than rival David Brat spent on his entire campaign. Typical politician.

Let this be the lesson taken from Cantor’s loss. He is not the only political leader to lose touch with voters. In fact, according to every indication, the entire political class has lost touch. There is ample polling to suggest that a majority of Americans voters don’t feel rooted in, or represented by, either the Republican or Democratic parties. Change or lose power, folks.

Nothing that 275,241 users know of. You can read the addon’s page and reviews. But generally if people aren’t familiar with with getting into the “engine” of a browser to do manual configuration, they should know they could mess it up if they are not sure what they’re doing. Ffox gives that warning when going into the configuration file. (I think other Mozilla-based browsers may do so also.)

Actually it is misleading to suggest that the Latin American kids crossing the border would ever be eligible for the DREAM Act. It is my understanding that the kids had to be living in the U.S. for quite awhile. The whole idea is that a toddler who comes to America and assimilates into the U.S. for years with his or her family should be allowed to gain residency. It really is demagoguery to suggest that somehow Latin American kids are showing up at the border because of the DREAM Act. It instead speaks to the desperation that people in many of these countries feel that they’d let their kids sneak across the border alone.

Dave Brat fully supports the Republican Creed, and any leader who unflinchingly upholds that Creed which reads as follows…

We Believe…
•That the free enterprise system is the most productive supplier of human needs and economic justice,
•That all individuals are entitled to equal rights, justice, and opportunities and should assume their responsibilities as citizens in a free society,
•That fiscal responsibility and budgetary restraints must be exercised at all levels of government,
•That the Federal Government must preserve individual liberty by observing Constitutional limitations,
•That peace is best preserved through a strong national defense,
•That faith in God, as recognized by our Founding Fathers is essential to the moral fiber of the Nation.

… unfortunately, however, our current congressman, Eric Cantor, has failed to uphold that Creed, and it is time for a change. It is time to term limit Eric Cantor.

That is from David Brat’s website. So this is his official position.

I think it is a very good simplification of what the GOP is all about.

I hope the GOP will analysis this and see that speaking simply and plainly can get the message across and maybe overcome the strong advantage that Democrats have in the media.

Getting a platform of views through the Media wall has been very difficult.

David Brat may have more to contribute to the national party than just immigration policy.

He doesn’t even address immigration directly in that Creed. But the foundational principles of the Republican Party are there.

The results of last night’s election in Virginia are reverberating all through the nation’s Capitol. Eric Cantor is a good man, but last night, voters in Virginia made D.C. listen loud and clear. This election should be a reminder to all in Congress – Republicans and Democrats alike – that the conservative base is alive and well, and the American people will hold us all accountable. Each of us needs to do what we said we would do and tell the truth. Washington needs to listen to the people, stop spending money we don’t have, and stand up and defend the Constitution. I look forward to working with soon-to-be-elected Rep. Brat to help turn our nation around, to pull back from the fiscal and economic cliff we are facing, and to bring back jobs, growth, and freedom in America.

And when he was in the district and he went out, he had a [security] entourage with him.

Absolute fact (despite coming from the lying yap of a Democrat). I was on the floor at the Virginia GOP convention last year in Richmond (you know, the one that gave us Cuccinelli and Jackson, who the centrists couldn’t be bothered to support), and Cantor came in. He had 4 or 5 gorillas surrounding him, the sort with eyes scanning the crowd, ears listening intently to whatever was being whispered to them in their earpieces, bodies tensed for action. I did shake hands with him, but it was a bit unsettling with his goons breathing down my neck.

Incidentally, Jindal and Allan West were there, too. Now they probably had security as well, but it was nowhere as obvious as Cantor’s.

Obviously everyone will promote the pet theory that most advances their cause, but, in the end, Cantor was done in by a multitude of factors that all contributed to a perception of him as arrogant and unresponsive. And who knows, when the dust clears, we’ll find out that it was really the cross-over Dems that iced him.

But he DID address immigration directly in places people were paying attention to.

Meanwhile, you have to laugh at the Politico piece. Immigration (aka amnesty) didn’t doom Cantor, but his loss assures the House doesn’t bring up amnesty this year, lol. If his loss had nothing to do with immigration(aka amnesty), then why are they afraid to bring up immigration(aka amnesty) as a result of his loss, lol?

You grab a poll and I’ll grab a poll, honey
You grab a poll and I’ll grab a poll, babe
You grab a poll and I’ll grab a poll,
There are plenty in Allahpundit’s hole,
Honey, oh Baby mine.

If you word a poll right, you can get the answer you wish. Heck, I can do that – take any issue, and construct the questions in two different ways to get two different outcomes. Scientific, huh?

Is this science settled, too?

The simple truth is that Cantor was cruising to victory just on incumbency, but thought he could get away with talking out of both sides of his mouth about immigration as Brat hammered him on it. Then, just as Laura Ingraham – the only outside help Brat got – came to rally voters on that issue, Cantor decided to say he was for a bill “for the kids.”

Days later, Obama’s floodgates opened as the word spread in Central America that El Patron would not deport minors.

As Chuck Colson might have observed, Cantor was “hoist on his own petard.”

Even now, even after watching Eric Cantor go down in flames, they STILL don’t get it. I’m amazed.

Here’s Brit Hume last night:

“Now, amnesty is a word with a meaning. You could look it up in the dictionary. And I wish there are people who I wish would do so. And it means pardon. It basically means an unconditional pardon. There’s not a single immigration reform measure that is been advanced seriously by anybody, certainly not by any Republicans that would involved an unconditional pardon for anybody.”

We are DONE with word games. If an illegal alien is allowed to stay in the country… that’s “amnesty”. Period. We are not fools. And these attempts to circumvent the issue with semantics are not going to work anymore.

Obama made a unilateral decision to give what is effectively amnesty to young illegals. Now we’ve got unescorted children pouring over our southern border, with numbers expected to be in the tens of thousands. And if a CHILD can cross our borders with impunity, you can bet your ass that terrorists and drug smugglers are doing the same.

But instead of putting a stop to Obama’s lawlessness, Cantor and the establishment GOP are playing word games with us because, incredibly, they seem to think it’s going to help their political careers. Well… the Chamber of Commerce’s money didn’t save Eric Cantor. Let the GOP stew on THAT.

People are tired of elitist politicians ignoring (Yes, we know what you claim to want, but we know what is best!) and slandering them (Nativist! Racist! Xenophobe!) while refusing to address issues that are really having a negative impact on the people’s lives.Resist We Much on June 11, 2014 at 12:38 PM

I started having doubts about Cantor but he totally lost me when he thought it political genius to send two bills to the Senate, one fully funding ObamaCare and one defunding ObamaCare. When Cantor did that, I knew that he had been in DC too long. Then his push for amnesty just verified his needing to be replaced.

People are tired of elitist politicians ignoring (Yes, we know what you claim to want, but we know what is best!) and slandering them (Nativist! Racist! Xenophobe!) while refusing to address issues that are really having a negative impact on the people’s lives.
Resist We Much on June 11, 2014 at 12:38 PM

“Today, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) joined Grover Norquist to talk about the importance of passing immigration reform this year on the second call in a series with conservative leaders,” the group’s executive director, Jeremy Robbins, wrote in the email

Paul was being staged for this. When McMorris Rogers gave the GOP response to the 2014 SOTU, Paul was to deliver a tea party response. The press made as if Paul was going to buck the GOP on amnesty. Instead, he came out as an amnesty pussycat:

For those who are struggling we want to you to have something infinitely more valuable than a free phone, we want you to have a job and pathway to success.

We are the party that embraces hard work and ingenuity, therefore we must be the party that embraces the immigrant who wants to come to America for a better future.

We must be the party who sees immigrants as assets, not liabilities.

We must be the party that says, “If you want to work, if you want to become an American, we welcome you.” Paul SOTU response

Pure propaganda to make the public believe amnesty was inevitable. ‘pathway to success’ was a subliminal link to ‘pathway to citizenship’

Wonder if they already have that in the new Zuckerberg/Ryan ads?

Looks like Rand Paul is already on the RINO Pathway to Success? Today they are ALL Cantors”

at McConnell’s ‘secret’ meeting today to save Cochran, the senile stooge incumbent, all the Cantors came to kiss the ring. Even Cantor Ayotte, Cantor Collins, Cantor Hatch…. Cantor Paul was too busy posing with Norquist